Congress and the U.S.-China Relationship 1949-1979

By Guangqiu Xu

Publication Year: 2007

Guangqiu Xu, a native of China fluent in both Mandarin and Cantonese, has written an exhaustive study of United States-China relations during the Cold War, with a special focus on the role of the U.S. Congress in influencing Sino-American policy. Based upon extensive archival research in Chinese and American sources, Professor Xu's book is comprehensive and original. It is a detailed account of the interactions between Congress and the White House as the United States forged its policies regarding the world's most populous nation. Covering the period from the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 to the United States' recognition of the PRC in 1979, this study shows how Congress became a key factor in the formulation and conduct of China policy. No other book examines so fully the legislative-executive struggles and compromises during this thirty-year period, from the postwar maneuverings of Truman to Nixon's surprising visit to Beijing. Especially important is Professor Xu's use of Chinese source material to discuss China's reaction and response to American policy decisions. Congress and the U.S.-China Relationship, 1949-1979 examines a familiar story from a fresh perspective, putting into a new context the forces at play in determining how the United States and China responded to each other during the chilliest years of the Cold War. With his emphasis on Congress, Professor Xu has opened up the history of the period to an analysis of how legislative power, direct and indirect, can affect foreign policy and change the course of world events.

Cover

Title

Copyright

Contents

Acknowledgments

This book was written during the past five years, although parts of it go
back much earlier; my own thoughts on these topics have developed significantly
over time. I have incurred a number of debts in completing this
book. Zhang Shuguang, master historian...

Note on Transliteration

This book uses pinyin romanization, a system that is applied to Chinese
names of persons, places, and terms. However, some popular names have
traditional Wade-Giles spellings appearing in parentheses, and traditional
spellings are used for place names and personal...

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

The Truman administration was working on a new China policy when
the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took over mainland China in
1949. The policy was not shaped completely until North Korea attacked
South Korea in 1950, when President Harry S. Truman...

Despite the voluminous and diverse studies on U.S.-China relations between
1949 and 1951, Congress’s role in China policy during that time
is rarely closely examined, and the CCP’s reactions to Congress’s China
policy are seldom investigated at all.1 Historians...

2. Congressional China Inquests and the McCarran Act, 1950–1952

There were twenty-four investigations of Communism and subversion
during the Eighty-first Congress (1949–51), and the number climbed to
thirty-four in the Eighty-second Congress. The congressional hearings
generated an enormous amount of scholarly...

3. Congressional China Policy and the Issue of Taiwan, 1953–1963

During the first Taiwan Strait crisis from September 1954 to April 1955
and the second Taiwan Strait crisis from August to October 1958, the
United States was locked into dangerous confrontations with the PRC
over a number of small islands just off the coast of mainland...

4. Congress’s Role in U.S.-China Rapprochement, 1964–1972

Despite the extensive literature on U.S-China rapprochement, less attention
has been paid to the role Congress played in revising the containment-and-isolation policy toward China from 1964 to 1972.1 The conventional
interpretation of Congress’s role in the making of...

5. Congress’s Role in U.S.-China Relations, 1972–1979

Notwithstanding a great body of literature on the U.S.-China rapprochement
process of 1972 to 1979, few accounts discuss the congressional role
in the process.1 The current interpretation of the role Congress played in
the Sino-American normalization process in the...

Conclusion

Congress became interested in the China issue after the Second World
War. A majority of Congress supported President Truman’s hands-off policy
toward China, but the most forceful congressional opponents of this
Asian policy urged greater American support...

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